Abstract
Through frequency up-conversion of polarization-shaped, femtosecond laser pulses nonlinearly interacting with xenon atoms, energetic, broadband, coherent, XUV continuum radiation is generated. By exploiting the thus-formed short-duration XUV pulses, all the optically allowed excited states of H are coherently populated. Nuclear and electronic 1-fs-scale dynamics are subsequently investigated by means of XUV-pump–XUV-probe measurements, which are compared to the results of ab initio calculations. The revealed dynamics reflects the intrinsic molecular behavior, as the XUV probe pulse hardly distorts the molecular potential.
- Received 17 December 2013
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.89.023420
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